


best-laid plans

by smolqueernerds



Category: Twelfth Grade (or Whatever) (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Sebastian is excessively pretentious, also feat. Oren with surprisingly good advice, and Liv writes music bc she is a multifaceted jewel of a person, literally just Viola being a highkey bisexual mess while casually kicking gender's ass, this fic is here to (awkwardly and inaccurately) conjecture, this was written entirely in a Notes app so my apologies for any formatting errors, warning: run on sentences and abrupt scene cuts abound, what exactly happened between Response and Epilogue?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 03:58:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11372109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolqueernerds/pseuds/smolqueernerds
Summary: Her phone buzzes; it's Liv, responding to her outpouring of emojis with a single heart.Warmth wells up in Viola's stomach.Yep. She's got it bad.





	best-laid plans

Viola Messing is not all that good at planning ahead.  
That's not to say that she doesn't make plans - grand and dramatic plans, such as, oh, pretending to be a cisgender boy for two years in order to infiltrate and dismantle a transphobic system. It's not that she doesn't follow through on her plans, either; she does, even when (especially when, Sebastian might say) they start to seem ill-advised. No, the real problem with her plans is that they have a tendency to fall apart midway through because of unaccounted-for factors, such as certain incriminating YouTube videos.  
The ironic thing? In hindsight, she's pretty sure her real reason for ignoring Sebastian was that talking to him meant talking about the plan, which meant having to think about what would happen after graduation. After she had to turn away from her moment of triumph and explain to Oren and Vic and Curt and Drew and everyone that she'd been lying to them for two years. That was the part she definitely hadn't planned for. But because she ignored Sebastian, he made the videos, and because he made the videos, everything came crashing down and her explanations were definitely not of the quality she'd been hoping for.  
So, yeah, she has some regrets about how the whole thing went down. But despite the missed finals and the loss of the long-anticipated grand reveal and the horrible tangled mess that was made of all her interpersonal relationships for a little while, she doesn't regret everything. Not by a long shot.  
Because the truth is, things turned out about as well as could possibly be expected. She graduated with straight As despite the finals, she's still as close with all the guys as can be expected in college, and even without the carefully planned reveal, everything was plenty dramatic.  
And now?  
Now the secret that was driving her and trapping her for two years has evaporated, and she can just be who she is.  
Granted, Viola Messing and Sam Messing were never very different people - right down to their taste in movies, girls, and flannels - but it's amazing to be able to follow so many different whims after worrying for so long that the wrong comment or article of clothing could give her away. She pairs sundresses with combat boots and short shorts with high heels and paints her nails with the colors of a different pride flag every week for a month and a half. She binds when she feels like it and doesn't when she doesn't and when people stumble over her pronouns she tells them that any and all are fine. She calls people out on their bigotry and if anyone sneers at her for it she doesn't have to scramble to retreat into a facade of straight boy ignorance; she just casually smiles and continues to verbally rip them to shreds.  
It's fantastic. (All except for the heels. She nearly sprained her ankle.)

And yeah, Viola doesn't have everything a hundred percent figured out right now - not her gender, not her major, not her life - but right now, she's okay with that.

Viola's roommate at U of M is a skinny white girl named Emmie with a mane of long blonde hair and a tendency to keep to herself. Her voice is pleasantly husky and her music taste is good, but Viola's favorite thing about her is her willingness to vacate their shared room when Viola and Oren take it over every Saturday night to pile the floor with pillows and blankets, crack open a case or five of Fruit by the Foot, and stay up til the wee hours of the morning talking and watching movies like they used to back at West Balk.  
Well, not exactly like they used to. The movie-watching is pretty similar, although now they can both point out the actors they think are hot as well as the actresses, but now they talk much more freely about crushes - not so much the ones they have right now, but the ones they used to have, including the ones they didn't even realize at the time. Viola even tells Oren about the moment she realized she liked him, when he hugged her after the first football game of senior year and warmth started to bubble in her stomach, and Oren admits to having a series of dreams junior year where he and Sam were in a relationship as literal penguins raising a chick together, and there really is no tension between them as they burst into helpless giggles.  
Viola also uses this time to properly introduce Oren to makeup and to sexuality puns and regrets both decisions almost immediately, because he keeps waking her up with 7 AM texts begging her to do his eyeliner before class (honestly, man, just watch some YouTube tutorials) and won't stop saying "more like BI-ola" under his breath whenever Professor Atley calls on her in their shared Intro to Sociology class.  
She even Skypes her brother one night to introduce Oren to him, though she fully expects to regret it. It had to be done.  
"Oren Pedro Douglas," Sebastian says gravely, or as gravely as possible considering he's eight inches high on a laptop screen and dressed in Eeyore footie pajamas.  
"Um. Sebastian Messing?" Oren says. "I don't actually know your middle name. Was I supposed to know your middle name? Viola didn't-"  
"I have done you a disservice," Sebastian continues, speaking over him and over Viola's attempts to interrupt. "I have maligned your character many a time. Granted, I'm still fairly sure I was right about almost all of it, such as you not being good enough to date my sister and not really being someone I would willingly interact with of my own accord, but there is one thing I can no longer ignore; I called you a straight boy, and you are apparently not."  
"Ninety-five percent sure I'm bi," Oren agrees.  
"Congratulations. And so I must apologize for assuming that just because you fit many, many common jock bro stereotypes, you must therefore fit absolutely all of them, including heterosexuality. That was presumptuous and demeaning of me."  
"Um, thank you? I think?"  
"Alright," Viola says, finally managing to cut in. "Now that you've delivered that incredibly insulting apology, Seb, want to get down to the real business at hand?"  
"Absolutely," Sebastian agrees. "Take a seat, not-actually-straight boy, and prepare to be educated."  
And so the three of them watch Clueless together, though somewhere along the way Oren and Sebastian start swapping embarrassing stories about Viola, which quickly turns into an absolute nightmare.  
"You're not all that bad, Oren Douglas," Sebastian says around 1 AM, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye.  
"Same," Oren says. "I mean, you same, not me same."  
"I hate both of you," Viola says from halfway across the room, her head buried in between two couch cushions.

It happens in the middle of texting Liv.  
Well, "texting" might be the slightest bit misleading, as it contains the root "text," which implies the involvement of actual words - which are something their quote-unquote conversations are devoid of over half the time. They do recommend quite a few books and films and songs to one another, but mostly Viola sends memes about bisexuality and pictures of Michigan sunsets and videos of her and Oren singing duets and Liv responds with affirmative emojis and pictures of her garden and videos of her playing piano.  
Viola's watching the most recent video, marveling at the speed of her fingers, when the song cuts off and the camera swings around to focus on Liv's smiling face. She says "So I actually wrote this one myself? It doesn't have a name yet or anything, and I don't really know much about composing, but I'm trying it out. Let me know what you think, maybe, if you want to? That's all, I guess. Bye, Viola!"  
Viola taps out a steady string of clapping hands and confetti poppers, then sets to rewatching the video with an eye for giving Liv feedback.  
Before she knows it, she's on her tenth rewatch, and no closer to thinking of anything that should be changed or added. She likes everything about the song; the bright notes, the quick but not frantic rhythms, the way Liv's fingers fly over the keys, the pride evident in Liv's smile when she admits to writing the song herself, the sound of Liv's voice when she says Viola's name-  
Wait.  
Her phone buzzes; it's Liv, responding to her outpouring of emojis with a single heart.  
Warmth wells up in Viola's stomach.  
Yep. She's got it bad.  
She flops face first onto the bed and groans loudly, which is precisely the moment at which Oren unlocks the door and lets himself in, arms laden with Fruit by the Foot.  
"Uh oh," he says. "Did you get your sociology midterm grade back or something? Because I didn't think Atley was gonna grade them for another three days."  
"She's not," Viola says. "This is an entirely unrelated crisis."  
Oren drops the candy on the floor and walks over to sit on the foot of the bed. "Spill."  
Viola sighs. "I like Liv."  
"And?"  
"No, like, I have a crush on her."  
"Do you want sympathy or something?" He clears his throat, his voice becoming exaggeratedly flat. "Oh no, how terrible, you're crushing on an awesome girl who's totally hot for you. I can only imagine the pain and suffering-"  
"This is serious," Viola says, twisting around to glare at him. "There's no way she still likes me like that! God, this always happens. Ugh."  
"I mean, you can't know that," Oren says. "You kind of need to ask her."  
"But then I'm presuming! Or, like, toying with her or something! What if-"  
Oren cuts her off. "Look, there are two options here. Either she doesn't like you anymore, or she does. If you tell her you like her, and she doesn't feel the same way, then c'est la vie, you move on, you two can stay friends. If you tell her you like her and she does feel the same way, then you get to date and be sickeningly adorable together. If you don't tell her, then nothing happens whatsoever and there will be more tragic pining than either of us wants to deal with."  
"So if I tell her, then I have a fifty percent chance of dating her, and if I don't tell her, it's zero percent?"  
"I mean, there is a ton of data you're not accounting for there, but your odds are definitely better the first way."  
"But how do I tell her? This isn't the kind of thing you text to someone."  
"Winter break's in a week. Can you visit her?"  
Viola sits up so fast that Oren nearly falls off the bed. "Oh, my god, that's perfect!"  
Oren grins smugly. "You're welcome."  
"You're so smart, Oren," Viola says, only joking slightly. "How did you get to be so smart?"  
"Months of practice," Oren says, "and a pretty great role model."  
Viola punches him in the shoulder slightly harder than she intended to, and he reciprocates in kind, and when she finally extricates herself from the resulting wrestling match she crawls over to where her phone is lying on the floor and types a message to Liv asking how she'd feel if Viola came to see her over winter break.

She has a speech, or a draft of one. Oren offered to help her write it, but she declined. As a result, it's not all that beautiful or flowery and it definitely won't go down in history as one of the top love confessions of all time, but it's sincere and it feels natural and Viola thinks she can get through it as without tripping over her tongue too many times.  
It goes something like this:  
Liv Belcik, you are one of the most incredible people I've ever met, and it is an honor and a privilege to be your friend. And if that's all that you want from me, I totally get that, and I am honestly so happy to be your friend for as long as you want me in your life. And I know that it's been months, and that we weren't in a good place before I left, and that you probably don't like me the way that you used to anymore, but I'd like to know if you want to date me, because I want to date you. Like, really really really want to date you. I want to watch cartoons with you and eat picnics in the park together and take you to see Wicked and stay up with you until the next morning talking about how gay Glinda and Elphaba are for each other. I want to be the Glinda to your Elphaba, except not exactly, because we're honestly even cooler than them. I want to bring you flowers and hit on you with my terrible pickup lines instead of Oren's and text you with actual words and if those words could be along the lines of "I love you" that'd be pretty cool. I would stand in a million Starbucks lines just to bring you back one vanilla bean frappucino, if that's what would make you happy. I really, really want to make you happy, Liv Belcik. So, would you like to go out with me?  
It's way too sappy and intense and she probably shouldn't mention Oren, but she can kind of revise as she's speaking. And then hopefully Liv will say yes, and they can go on a date or two in town, and maybe - just maybe - they can even kiss before Viola flies back for spring semester. That might be jumping the gun a little, though, so Viola's prepared to wait. Liv's worth it.  
She's pretty sure that Liv's worth everything.

It's time.  
Liv's right in front of her, and she's so beautiful and so real that Viola got a little tongue-tied when she answered the door. But now she's totally cool and calm and collected. All she needs now is an opening so she can give her speech. She's got this.

She does not got this.  
She saw her opening, and she took it, only now she can't stop grinning or waving her hands around and she can't even manage to look at Liv let alone talk to her and oh god this was a terrible idea and-  
"What are you asking me, Viola?"  
Viola's stupid, traitorous mouth skips over the beginning and middle and end of her speech to land somewhere in the middle of next week and blurts out "Can I kiss you?"  
An eternity of deafening silence. (Maybe more like a second and a half. Whatever. Semantics.)  
"Now?"  
Well, it's not a resounding yes, but it's not "leave my home immediately and never proposition me again," so Viola starts babbling, grasping at threads of her speech to try to piece together a reasonable explanation for her behavior, when-  
"Viola. Yes."  
The uncontrollable smile starts up again, but it's okay, because Viola's leaning in to kiss Liv. She's kissing Liv. She's pulling away from a kiss with Liv, because kissing is a two-person process and you've got to be sure the other person is 100% fine with it at all times, and also Viola feels a little like she's been hit over the head with a sledgehammer (a sledgehammer of pure happiness, but still).  
"You okay?"  
"I'm really okay."  
Maybe she'll give the speech later, Viola thinks as she leans in again. She can afford to wait right now.

Viola Messing is not all that good at planning ahead.  
But when it really matters, things tend to work out for her anyway.


End file.
